Technote (FAQ)

Question

What are the basic steps to reinstall a Lotus Domino server or to move a Domino server from one machine to another?

Possible reasons for reinstalling a Domino Server :

1. Customers may want to reinstall a server because, during install of an incremental installer, an error occurred and the installer did not complete. 2. The Domino server is crashing and troubleshooting did not reveal the root cause.

Answer

Note: The following steps should be considered a best practice to recover from a Domino server upgrade failure or a complete reinstallation of a Domino server. These steps only relate to the components installed by the Domino server installer. Data stored in the data directory structure should be protected. Additionally, if there are logs that are stored in the binaries directory or if any other products are installed and reference files in this directory, appropriate actions should be taken to back these files up.

Reinstalling a Domino server

Run a full installation of the Domino server and point the install to the previously installed Domino directory on the physical server. This will not overwrite existing system files and you do not need to go through an initial server setup since the install files will pick up all relevant information from the existing NOTES.INI file. The Domino directory also does not get overwritten so when the server is started again, it will continue as if nothing has changed. Server startup will continue and all previous settings will still be intact.

Moving a Domino server from one machine to another

Shut off replication and mail routing to the server that is being rebuilt or reinstalled.

Make a complete backup of the original Domino server. Note that the location of the program directory can be identified from the line NotesProgram = in the NOTES.INI file.

Create the Lotus\domino and Lotus\domino\data directories on the new server.

Move all the data files from the old machine (the location of the data directory can be identified from the line Directory= in the NOTES.INI) to the appropriate place on the new server box. Data files include:

Note: It is also important to copy the Certlog.nsf over because it is used for security purposes and for user maintenance (to some degree).

Move all the mail files of all the Notes mail users. By default, these are kept in the Notes\Data\Mail directory. Additionally, move all other databases that were created on the original Domino server.

Be sure to use Lotus\Domino and Lotus\Domino\Data as the install directories on a Windows OS. (If you are upgrading the server at the same time as moving it from one machine to another, you would install the new server software)

Disconnect the new machine from the network.

Launch the new server to ensure that it was installed correctly and that it is properly configured. The configuration Notes client should not launch at this time. Because the notes.ini from the previous installation was used, the server should have the same configuration as it did on the original Host Server.

When setting up the Domino server software, use the original server ID, admin ID, and Cert.ID files. Remember to use the exact same Domino server name and Domain names.

When the initial Domino installation begins it may state that the Windows Registry needs to modify some settings that are still present from the previous installation. Click “Yes” to correct this.

Shut down the server.

When the new server has all its files, the old Domino server must be shut down before bringing up the new Domino server with the same name. Take the old server down, put the old server's IP address on the new server, connect the new server to the network, and restart the new server for the change to take effect.

Bring up the Domino server on the new machine.

Additional things to consider

In general, it is a good practice to do a "clean" code install with the existing configuration and user data in order to clean up several releases worth of upgrade-related files that may still exist from previous Notes installs.

Make sure the Server document is updated if the Network Configuration section changes. Some customers may have a server IP address in the Net Address field. This must be updated if the new box being installed has a different IP address.

Check for Directory Links when performing an upgrade/move.

Check for any OS level junctions or symbolic links that are defined. Ensure new symbolic links are created on the new server or the files for those links become part of the data directory.

If the server name is to be changed ensure that all encrypted databases are decrypted before copying the files to the new server.

When moving servers between different operating system platforms, use FTP to relocate the databases or mailfiles. This will ensure the codepages are not corrupted. In some instances, using the OS copy has caused some database corruption.

If moving from one machine to another and the drive mapping is different (e.g., from C drive to D drive), change the following parameters in the NOTES.INI:

Directory=d:\Lotus\Domino\Data
NotesProgram=d:\Lotus\Domino

Perform a search in the server's NOTES.INI to ensure that these parameters are changed appropriately. Additionally, perform a "find" (CTRL + F) on the old drive references and change appropriately.

NOTE: If the server's name is changed when it is moved to the new hardware, the administrator can send users a mail message with a button having LotusScript behind it to change their Location documents to reflect the new name of the server. For further information, refer to the document titled 'How to use LotusScript to change fields in all Location documents ' (#1092794) for details.

Moving from Windows to Unix platform:

When moving to a different platform, always use the Domino server to replicate the database, primarily because this does not replicate the incompatible view indexes to the new platform.

Windows to Unix moves should investigate and prepare for case-sensitivity file and path issues.